Theoretical Fiesta is a discursive program which is as theoretical as it is activist and grapples with urgencies of our precarious lives. It's first edition titled Beauty, and the Pain of Others focuses on the burning question of art today: how to act in the time of the indescribable pain of ordinary people worldwide - in war zones, various camps whether refugees’ or unhoused persons’, and as victims of violent discrimination - by discussing possible methods of art in forming ethical values through empathy. Inspired by Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, especially her notion of aesthetic education, we will approach relations between art, body, and politics in a feminist and decolonial manner. On the one hand, the talks will examine how aesthetic education trains our imagination and how it can decolonise our sensibility, knowledge, and cognition, while on the other, they will discuss politics through the ethics emerging from empathy, a capacity to share the suffering of another being, a capacity to be moved by their pain. As this year Bitef program shows us, performing arts are here indispensable. As a highly imaginative social practice and field densely populated with bodies - trained, learning and unlearning, formed and forming, collaborating, exposing themselves and meeting others in a number of ways - performing arts offer abundance of possibilities to embody the others and make visionary proposals of living together real and experiential.
The program is edited by Ana Vujanović, in collaboration with Jelena Knežević and Ksenija Đurović. It consists of the lecture One World, One Pain? by Nikita Dhawan followed by a talk with Ana Vujanović and discussion with the audience, and the interactive lecture The Power of Fragility by María do Mar Castro Varela. The lecture by Nikita Dhawan will take place on the 27th of September, 2024 and is open to general public. The lecture by María do Mar Castro Varela will be held on the 28th of September, 2024 as a FLINTA* event, aiming to create a safe space for women, lesbians, intersex, non-binary, trans, and agender people. For registration and further clarification please refer to the event's page.
Ana Vujanović is a cultural worker - researcher, writer, dramaturge, lecturer… - focused on bringing together critical theory, contemporary art, and socialist-feminist political posture. She holds Ph.D. in Theatre Studies and post-graduate diploma in Culture and Gender Studies. Since 2016 she is a team member and mentor at SNDO, University of the arts Amsterdam and since 2022 a guest professor of theory at HZT, University of the arts Berlin. She was a founding member of the Belgrade-based theoretical-artistic platform TkH [Walking Theory] and for many years editor of the TkH Journal for Performing Arts Theory. For several years she was particularly committed to empower independent cultural scenes in Belgrade and former Yugoslavia. She has published numerous articles and books, most recently A Live Gathering: Performance and Politics in Contemporary Europe (2019), ed. with L. A. Piazza and Toward a Transindividual Self: A study in social dramaturgy (2022), with B. Cvejic. As dramaturge, she is engaged in performance, dance, and video/film, most recently documentary film Landscapes of Resistance (2021) directed by M. Popivoda.
